Next weekend all six Challengers teams will be in action. Four of them on Saturday, the NLB-Team and the U12-Juveniles on Sunday.
Three teams will play in Zurich on Saturday. The Softball-Team will welcome the Bern Cardinals on the Klopstockwiese in Zurich-Enge. The Challengers will try to maintain their winning streak, which has so far included five wins in a row. The games start at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
The NLA-Team will play a preliminary round game in the newly designed Swiss Cup against the Zurich Barracudas’ NLB-Team at 2 p.m. at the Heerenschürli ballpark. The 1st League-Team will then play a night game at 6 p.m. in the Heerenschürli ballpark against the Zurich Eighters. This is finally the first game of the season for the 3rd team of the Challengers organization. Meanwhile, the U15-Cadets will host the SG Unicorns/Eagles at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. in Embrach PZ Hard.
On Sunday the U12-Juveniles will be in action on the Klopstockwiese. The Challengers’ youngest team meets the Wil Devils in the top battle of the Eastern Group. The games start at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The first pitch in the cup match for the NLB-Team will also take place at 11 a.m. The second team faces the Emrbrach Mustangs in the Heerenschürli ballpark.
Posts in the NLB category:
Busy weekend for the Challengers with all the teams in action
Wild local derby in the NLB
The NLB-Teams of the Zurich Challengers and the Zurich Barracudas fought a wild double header on Saturday. 56 runs, 50 hits, 40 walks and 27 errors are impressive numbers for 14 innings played. And in the end there was a win for both teams.
The start of the first game already gave an idea of where things could lead. The Challengers’ young guard gave them a 5-0 lead. Noam Müller, Jack Siemers, Florin Kampfer, Jordi Bucher and, on a wild pitch, Andreas Rüdisühli provided the runs. But after the first inning it was 5-5. The game went wild with several twists, turns and confusions. After five innings the game was tied at 17-17. Then the Challengers benefited from three errors by the Barracudas and took the lead once again with 20-17. Joseph Stotz took over as pitcher for the Challengers and stepped the bleeding. Apart from an RBI triple, he didn’t let any Barracudas runner score, so the Challengers were able to celebrate a memorable 20-18 victory. Florin Kampfer went 4-for-4 with 4 RBI, while Samuel Rodríguez Bautista, Thomas Landis, Juan Francisco Robles and Andreas Rüdisühli each had two hits.
And there was little missing for the Challengers to have followed up with a second win. The guests led 5-4 until the sixth inning. This was mainly thanks to four runs in the second inning, when the Challengers took a 4-2 lead with an RBI-single from Adderly Sarmiento, an RBI from Andreas Rüdisühli and a 2-run double from Honey Gigato Romero. But the Barracudas scored nine runs on nine hits in the sixth inning and took Game 2 by a score of 13-5. Honey Gigato Romero led the offense with three hits, while Adderly Sarmiento and Jack Siemers each delivered two hits.
Derby weekend
Next weekend the local rivals Zurich Challengers and Zurich Barracudas will face each other four times in the Heerenschürli ballpark in Zurich-Schwamendingen. There are two games scheduled in the NLA on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, while the NLB teams meet in a doubleheader on Saturday.
The NLA-Teams open the weekend with a night game on Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. No duel in Swiss baseball history has been as evenly matched as the Zurich local derby. In the past 30 years the two teams have met 139 times. The statistics show 70-69 wins in favor of the Challengers. And so far this season the duel is even at 1-1 after both teams clearly won one game on the opening weekend. The second game is scheduled for Sunday at 3 p.m.
There will also be a clash between the Barracudas and the Challengers in the NLB. These games take place on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. And here too, both teams won one game each in the first meeting on the opening weekend.
The only team not involved in a local derby on the weekend is the Softball-Team. The women will meet the Sissach Frogs on Saturday. The games start at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. in Sissach Tannbrunn.
NLB-Team loses twice to Unicorns
The NLB-Team keeps up well with the strong Hünenberg Unicorns, but has a bad third inning in both games, the burden of which is too heavy.
The Central Swiss team is launching a new NLB-Team in the 2024 season. The Unicorns added a lot of quality so that they should be able to finish in the upper half of the standings. Nevertheless the Challengers held up well for long stretches. The reason for the two defeats was the third inning on both occasions. In the first game, the Unicorns erupted for nine runs for a 12-0 lead. But the home team showed good fighting spirit and scored six unanswered runs to make it 6-12. In the second game the Unicorns again pulled ahead in the third with seven runs to 10-2. Ultimately they won 13-3. The Challengers undoubtedly have room for improvement on offense. In both games they only managed a total of four hits.
Three homegames next weekend
Three Challengers teams will compete in a doubleheader on home soil the upcoming weekend. The Softball-Team and the NLA-Team play on Saturday, the NLB-Team does work on Sunday.
The women will welcome the Lucerne Eagles on Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on the Klopstockwiese in Zurich-Enge. After the split against the reigning champions Wittenbach on Opening Day, the Challengers are clearly favorites against the young Eagles team.
Also on Saturday there will be a reprise of the last two finals of the Swiss Baseball Championship between the two arch-rivals Zurich Challengers and Therwil Flyers at the Heerenschürli ballpark in Zurich-Schwamendingen. The game starts at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. No duel has been played more often in Swiss baseball. In the last 30 years, the two teams have met 164 times, with the Flyers clearly ahead with 101 to 63 wins. On the other hand there is no team in the league that has won against the Flyers as often as the Challengers.
The NLB-Team meets the Hünenberg Unicorns on Sunday. The games start at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the Heerenschürli ballpark. While the Zurich team won Game 1 in a split in the local derby on Opening Day, the Unicorns are still waiting for their first win of the season after two home defeats against the Lucerne Eagles.
Swiss Cup games postponed
The Swiss Cup game between the Zurich Challengers and the second team from the Therwil Flyers scheduled for today at 2 p.m. has been canceled due to an unplayable field because of heavy rain. No make-up date has been announced so far.
The game between the Challengers NLB-Team and the Zurich Barracudas Academy scheduled for Sunday at Embrach Klink Hard will not be played.
Revival of the Swiss Cup and Season Opener for 1st League-Team
Next weekend the Swiss Cup will celebrate its revival with a completely new mode. And the 1st League-Team is the last team in the Challengers organization to start the 2024 season with a home game on Sunday.
After a break of over 10 years, a Swiss Cup will be held again for the first time in 2024. The mode has been completely overhauled. In the first part of the competition there is now a group phase in which the 16 NLA- and NLB-Teams have been divided into four groups of four and everyone plays a single game against each other on three game days. The top two teams in each group qualify for the knockout round, in which the Swiss Cup winner is determined in the quarterfinals, semifinals and final. The winner of the competition will take part in the European Federations Cup 2025. The Challengers NLA-Team will meet the second team of the Therwil Flyers on the first game day of the group phase in Therwil. The game will take place on Saturday, April 20th at 2 p.m. at Therwil Känelmatt. The second team will play the Zurich Barracudas Academy on Sunday, April 21 at 11 a.m. at Embrach PZ Hard in a duel of two NLB teams.
On Sunday, April 21st, also the 1st League-Team will open the new season as the last team in the Challengers organization. The Challengers’ third team welcomes the Zurich Barracudas and the SG Wil Pirates / Zurich Lions at the Heerenschürli ballpark. The games start at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Successful start for NLB-Team
A lot is new in the Challengers NLB-Team. With Farid Bekkali and Martin Strzodka two new skippers took over. Their main task is to introduce more young players to adult baseball and to give young players more responsibility. After all these are the future pillars of the first team.
Special about the start of the season was that Bekkali and Strzodka met their old club, the Zurich Barracudas, on Opening Day. There, however, they were responsible for the 1st league team. The philosophy of supporting young players was also evident in the lineup. The coaches gave the ball to pitcher Florin Kämpfer, who made his first Opening Day start for the NLB team. He was a bit wild with seven walks in three innings, but Kämpfer only gave up one hit and three runs, two of them earned, and handed the game to the bullpen with a 5-3 lead. Patrick Zöllig provided the first Challengers run of the season, Honey Gigato Romero, who joined the Challengers from the Zurich Eighters, celebrated a successful debut with an RBI single and Oliver Bernet made it 5-3 with a 2-run double. The Challengers defended this lead and ultimately won 8-4. Patrick Zöllig got the save with the last two outs of the game.
In Game 2 Joseph Stotz was given the start for the Challengers on the pitcher’s mound. The Barracudas had their sights sharpened in the break between the two games, scoring four runs on four hits in the first inning. In contrast, the Challengers’ yield remained low with an RBI single from Jack Siemers. Stotz did his job well and left the mound after three innings with five hits, five runs, four earned, two walks and one strikeout. But then came the fourth inning in which all the dams broke. From seven hits, seven walks, four hit batters and two errors the Barracudas scored 18 runs, meaning the fair was over. The Barracudas celebrated a 23-2 win.
Opening Weekend with six home games
The new baseball and softball season begins with the Opening Weekend. Challengers fans can enjoy six home games from Friday to Sunday.
It starts with the NLA-Team, which opens its mission to defend the Swiss championship title against their cross-town rivals Zurich Barracudas with a night game in the Heerenschürli ballpark on Friday, April 12th at 6:30 p.m. Game 2 of this two-game series will take place on Saturday, April 13th from 5:30 p.m. also in the Heerenschürli with the official Challengers Season Opening Party.
The Challengers Softball-Team will also start the new season on Saturday, April 13th. In a reprise of the last three final series in Swiss softball, the blue and red welcome the reigning Swiss Champions Wittenbach Panthers on the Klopstockwiese in Zurich-Enge. The games start at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
The NLB-Team opens its season on Sunday, April 14th in the Heerenschürli ballpark. The greatly rejuvenated second team will face the Zurich Barracudas second team in the small city derby. The games start at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Opening Day on April 12 to 14
The Swiss Baseball and Softball Federation has published the schedules for the 2024 season. The season starts on Friday night, April 12th with the first Zurich derby of the season. From now on the game schedules for all the leagues are available on the Baseball and Softball Manager website.
The most important changes concern the withdrawal of the Bern Cardinals from the Baseball NLA, so that the NLA will consist of just four teams in 2024 with the Zurich Barracudas, Therwil Flyers, Wil Pirates and the Challengers. The NLB will now consist of three groups, with the Challengers facing the second team of the Barracudas, the Hünenberg Unicorns and the Luzern Eagles. After a break of several years the Swiss Cup is experiencing a revival. The 2024 edition of the Swiss Cup will be special. First a preliminary round will be played in four groups of four teams, each with one NLA and three NLB teams, while the knockout phase will start from the quarter-finals with the games between the respective group winners and one of the group runners-up. Semi-finals and finals will take place on the 7th/8th of September at the Heerenschürli ballpark.
The NLA team is the first team in the Challengers organization to start the new season with two night games at the Heerenschürli ballpark on April 12th and 13th against the Zurich Barracudas. On Saturday, April 13, there will be a reprise of last year’s softball final between the Challengers and the Wittenbach Panthers at the Klopstockwiese. On Sunday, April 14, the NLB team opens the 2024 season with a doubleheader against the Zurich Barracudas.